


Avengers Means Family (a cautionary tale)

by moontyrant



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Big Brother Thor, Cheating Boyfriend, Fluff, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, delivery boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:27:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4548546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moontyrant/pseuds/moontyrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy's cheating (ex)boyfriend won't give her stuff back after she leaves him, and it's up to the Avengers to make it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avengers Means Family (a cautionary tale)

**Author's Note:**

> [Based on this post.](http://moontyrant.tumblr.com/post/126405276090/jabberwockypie-throwtime-throwtime-im)

"And Family means: No one gets left behind. Or forgotten."

       -Lilo and Stitch

 

 

“I'm not doing anything illegal,” Tony declared into the receiver. Pepper bit back her sigh and settled her bare feet on her desk blotter, her kitten heels abandoned.

“What is it now?”

“You know Darcy Lewis?” She could hear something like static on the other end, no, wind, and his suit didn’t make that noise so he must be driving with the windows open.

“I know Darcy,” Pepper confirmed slowly. Everyone knew Darcy, probably because Darcy knew everyone. She was Dr. Foster’s assistant and one of Thor’s closest friends, his Midgardian confidant. On top of that she did yoga with Bruce and crashed Girls’ Night (SHIELD edition) on more than one occasion. Fury put her in charge of Steve and Bucky’s 21st century acclimatization, which meant the three of them (and sometimes Clint) would spend hours on the couch watching _That 70’s Show_ or mainlining entire series from Netflix. Pepper herself had spent several Avengers emergencies holed up in her office with Jane, Darcy and Dr. Ross to watch the mayhem and destruction on the news while their respective loved ones battled monsters, maniacs and gods. Darcy Lewis practically lived at Avengers Tower.

“Well Darcy broke up with what’s-his-face.”

“Trent,” Pepper supplied.

“Whatever. What’s-his-face cheated on her and they broke up, but now he’s holding her stuff hostage until she agrees to talk with him, which isn’t happening.”

“Tony,” she warned.

“We’re gonna get her stuff!” he replied, all cheer.

“Who’s we? Tony!” But the line was dead and she cursed inwardly. Not that she could blame him, but she really, _really_ did not want to deal with the media fallout.

 

Peter Parker lounged shotgun, feet on the dash while Tony drove. Clint originally balked that the "kid" got to sit up front, but Peter called shotgun and those are the rules. Thor, Clint, Steve and Bucky all squished in the back, with Clint pretty much sitting in Thor’s lap, bitching under his breath. Tony pulled up to the curb and Peter checked the address twice to make sure they got the right place. “Man, Darce lives in a shithole,” Tony whistled. The apartment complex was a line of blocky brick buildings with small windows, built sometime before 1970; the lawns were yellowed and dotted with unkempt hedges.

Clint and Peter clambered out of Tony’s obnoxious red car and strode up to the offending apartment building. The door had a broken lock and they didn’t need to buzz in, so they stepped into the damp dark of the building and climbed the stairs. “I hate this place,” Clint noted in an undertone, eyes naturally darting around for potential attackers.

Peter shrugged. “I’ve lived in worse.”

“Okay, that’s really kinda sad. This place smells like trash.”

“Mold from garden level,” Peter corrected absently. They stopped on the third floor and Clint rapped his knuckles on the scarred door. After a pause it squeaked open as far as the chain would let it and Trent glowered at them. He was tall, maybe six foot and some change, with dark curly hair and a dour expression.

“What do you want?”

“We’re here to pick up Ms. Lewis’ belongings,” Peter told him, radiating good-natured benevolence.

Trent scowled harder. “Look!” he snapped. “If she wants her shit she can come pick it up herself! I don’t know why she would send a coupla dumbfucks to get her crap! Get the fuck out of here before I call the cops!”

Behind him Clint tensed, ready to dish some abuse right back but Peter raised his hands in surrender. “Okay! Okay! Easy, jeez.”

He and Clint plodded back down the stairs and out into the sunshine, giving the red car a nod. “It’s like a clown car,” Clint said, and somehow he sounded nostalgic as two huge super soldiers, an even bigger Norse god and Tony Fucking Stark got out of the car and drifted in their direction.

Steve and Thor took point and let the others loiter on the sidewalk out front. Bucky eyed the window in that suspicious way he did when he wanted something but didn’t want to say anything. “Don’t do it,” Tony warned.

“It’s barely a climb,” Bucky whined.

“Someone will call the police if you scale the building and break in through the window,” Tony reminded him. “And since that would be illegal and unnecessary there’s no telling how long booking all of us would take.”

Bucky’s jaw worked. “I don’t like this _Trent_.”

“I know buddy.”

Steve and Thor returned to them, hands in their pockets and annoyance on their faces. “He was polite, but no go,” Steve explained.

Bucky grit his teeth and marched through the front door before it had a chance to close all the way. The rest of the Avengers followed. On one hand Bucky probably wouldn’t serve up a Winter Soldier Special, but on the other hand he could be erratic and mean spirited. Of course, he wouldn’t take the stairs like a normal person. Instead he climbed the railing. Distressed iron creaked as it took his weight and he vaulted up the straight upwards. “Show off,” Steve muttered.

And then the six of them were on the landing and Thor knocked again, four friends at his back and Bucky still perched on the ledge by the railing, face expressionless but eyes _dancing_. Trent opened the door all the way, having apparently decided that swearing at people through the chain wasn’t doing the trick, and he took in the Avengers in their plain clothes, all with varying degrees of displeasure radiating off them. Trent opened his mouth, shut it, and then stepped aside with a huff. “Fine! Take what you want!” he snapped.

They slunk into the apartment. The inside was just as crappy as the outside: boiled cabbage and stale curry hung on the air, the stiff, tan carpeting appeared to be original to the building and ran throughout the entire floor, including the bathroom and kitchen for some reason. Splotches of water damage darkened the textured ceiling and fine cracks ran through the eggshell paint on the walls. Trent left a leaning tower of crusted dishes in the sink and the kitchen trash had reached critical levels of fullness.

Once inside Bucky seemed content to shadow Trent throughout the apartment, standing a little too close. “Do you mind!”

“No,” Bucky growled, and leaned a hair closer, daring Trent to object. His metal arm recalibrated with a whir. Trent closed his mouth.

In the living room Thor fixed Steve with soulful eyes. “Captain. Perchance some of Miss Lewis’ belongings are under the couch?”

“Gosh, Thor, maybe. We should look.” Steve used one hand to heft the end of the couch to shoulder level, the other hand scratching at the beginnings of stubble on his cheek. “Nope. Nothing under here.”

“Huh!” Thor scooped up the green armchair and propped it against his hip like a laundry basket. “Nothing here as well.”

Clint loped into the kitchen. “Better check the fridge,” he called over his shoulder. He found gallon-sized baggie of cold pizza slices and pulled them out with a grin. “Jackpot!” Trent sucked in a breath to protest but wilted when Bucky somehow cranked his Evil Death Stare to eleven. At least Trent knew, in the inexplicable way potential survivors know, that if he tried to push Bucky away or elbow around him he would not come out on top. The Winter Soldier didn’t live on a hair trigger much anymore, but he Did Not Like Trent, and Cap’s Disapproving Pout™ could only go so far. Tony almost pitied him. Almost.

He flung himself on the couch and grinned at Steve. “Golly, I think you better look under the couch again, Cap.”

Steve nodded and with a perfectly straight face, took the end of the couch with both hands and made dramatic grunting noises. “Too. Heavy,” he huffed. “Your gigantic. Ego. Weighs too much!”

Tony scowled. “Ha ha aaaAAAH!” Thor took the other end and then the two blond Adonises raised the couch a good four feet off the floor. Tony clutched at the outer fabric. “You guys suck! Put me down!”

Peter rolled his eyes and made his way to the bedroom to collect Darcy’s stuff. Because at least one of them had to be useful. He found two decent sized flattened cardboard boxes leaning against the wall of the closet, and got to work making them box-like again before dumping anything that might be Darcy’s into them. The clothes were easy; he tossed the contents of her dresser into one box and anything on hangers that he would classify as girl clothing. He padded into the bathroom and collected the girly stuff there, too: makeup, her shampoo and conditioner, tampons, nail polish, stuff like that. He couldn’t tell which toothbrush was hers, so he picked the light green one.

He scooted the boxes out into the hall in the hope that the other Avengers would help, and Tony occasionally dropped things in the boxes as he found them. Clint polished off the pizza in the fridge and made sandwiches for Steve and Thor. “Love me some egg salad,” Clint grinned, and waggled a sandwich in Peter’s direction. Peter shook his head and tried not to laugh.

Realistically, everything they collected could fit in one box, but he didn’t feel like consolidating the boxes so he didn’t bother. Tony giggled in the background and Steve and Thor moved to pick up and put down the bookcase, the desk and the fridge in no particular order, enjoying themselves immensely. Bucky watched Trent, and he didn’t say it but Peter could feel him thinking something along the lines of “Make my day, punk.” Clint found a six pack of microbrews, popped one open on the edge of the counter and sipped.

“I think we’re good here,” Peter piped up. When did these weirdos become his friends?

“Avengers!” Steve barked, like they were on a mission to save New York instead of terrorizing this guy’s apartment. Thor took one box and Peter took the other and they filed out. Last to leave, Bucky lingered in the doorway, eyes boring into Trent, a silent promise that Trent better not step a toe out of line in the future or else. Then he turned on his heel and marched down the stairs, leaving the door yawning ajar in his wake.

 

They found Darcy in the lab with Bruce and Jane, the two scientists talking quantum mechanics while Darcy sipped cooling coffee and flipped through a magazine. Thor and Peter dropped the boxes on one of the clearer work benches, Thor exuberant with their bounty. “Lady Darcy! We bring gifts!”

“What’s all this?” she laughed, and then flipped one of the boxes open. She picked through the mess of clothes and toiletries, eyebrows inching closer to her hairline the whole time. “Guys!” she squawked.

Thor beamed. “We visited the scoundrel Trenton in his home and requested your possessions. It was a glorious campaign!”

She hugged a fluffy green towel to her chest that Peter hoped was hers before throwing it in the box, her eyes the size of saucers. “Oh my God! What did you even _say_ to him!”

Tony snorted. “Nothing! We’re not messenger boys!”

“We’re delivery boys,” Bucky deadpanned. Tony grinned and made finger pistols at him.

“I can’t even believe this,” Darcy marveled. She dropped the towel in the opened box and started on the other one. There were clothes still on hangers and a couple books that could only be Darcy’s (Trent didn’t strike Peter as a scholar of any type, let alone of political science) but she paused about halfway through. “Um.”

Tony couldn’t stay silent any longer. He reached in the box and lined up the miscellaneous objects with a flourish. “I did these ones. Behold! The batteries to his TV remote, the lightbulb from his closet, one of his running shoes-just one!- all the toilet paper in the apartment, including the roll he had on the little stand by the toilet, his toothbrush, and the power bar his laptop was plugged into.”

Steve whistled through his teeth and the rest of them nodded, impressed by his patented Stark deviousness. Darcy sniffled and blinked rapidly. “You guys are unreal.” And then she burst into tears, unusual for Darcy, but then she hardly reacted when she found out Trent was sleeping around aside from leaving him and staying with Jane. Thor wrapped her in his arms and patted her awkwardly, exuberance transformed in an instant into a vague kind of panic. The other Avengers shifted their weight from foot to foot and looked away. All except Bucky, who couldn’t be fazed by machinegun fire, let alone a few hiccupping sobs. He was also standing in the doorway, meaning no one (like Tony) could bolt. 

After a minute Darcy squirmed out of Thor’s hug, sniffling and blinking and blotchy. She pulled off her glasses and scrubbed at the tear drops on them with the hem of her blouse. She gave them all a watery smile. “Thanks. You didn’t have to.”

“It was our genuine pleasure, Miss Lewis,” Steve told her, and damn if he didn’t sound so embarrassingly earnest. Peter nodded because there wasn't anything he could add. This was a good day.

Bucky leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “So!” he chirped to break the awkward silence. “Chipotle?”

“Yes!” Tony seconded. “Do you think they deliver?”

“I’m 100% sure Chipotle doesn’t deliver Stark,” Clint told him. Jane grinned and walked around her workspace to throw an arm across Darcy’s shoulder. On her other side, Thor wrapped a protective arm around Darcy’s waist and the Avengers family left the Tower to face the brave new world.

“But can you imagine how much they would make if they delivered? Where’s my phone? Where’s my phone! JARVIS, tell Pepper we need to buy Chipotle. That company is a mess and I just need to own it!”

**Author's Note:**

> You can haunt my tumblr [here.](http://moontyrant.tumblr.com/)


End file.
